On Tuesday, April 5, 2011, the Review of Law and Social Change hosted a symposium: Taking Stock: A Symposium Celebrating the New York State Judicial Committee on Women in the Courts. This issue is dedicated to that symposium.
Hon. Betty Weinberg Ellerin, then Senior Counsel to Alston & Bird and Chair of the New York State Judicial Committee on Women in the Courts, delivered the preface to this issue.
Abstract
Issues of bias in Family Court in the context of race and overrepresentation of people of poverty have been extensively explored in academic literature. There is arguably a parallel overrepresentation of women, and particularly mothers, in our Family Courts. I question whether the Family Court would function as it currently does without mothers as its core litigants. Specifically, I delve into the implicit gender biases inherent in societal expectations of mothers as all-knowing, ever-nurturing, and ever-protective of their children––expectations that often ignore the complexities and nuances of motherhood. To illustrate my thesis, I focus on a case that I was involved in over a decade ago, which was subsequently featured in Professor Dorothy Roberts’ book: Shattered Bonds: The Color of the Child Welfare System. Through this narrative, the Article raises critical questions regarding the influence of implicit gender bias and the construct of motherhood in Family Court proceedings. As a result of its predominance, has the gender of Family Court litigants become virtually invisible? How might we identify, confront, and address this (in)visibility in our family justice system?
Abstract
Violence against women is both a fact of life for women throughout the world and an idea growing out of the international human rights movement. As an idea, violence against women brings together various kinds of gender violence, names them, and characterizes them not as isolated incidents perpetrated by misguided individuals but as parts of culturally-created systems of gender inequality. Armed with an understanding of the idea of gender violence and the insights into its character and dynamics, activists are free to use this idea as a weapon. This paper will discuss three examples of efforts to use the idea of violence against women and its corollaries to change the lives of women and girls who live within its shadow: a case brought in the Inter-American Human Rights Commission on behalf of a United States victim of domestic violence, federal violence against women legislation, and New York State’s anti-human trafficking campaign. Each represents a different kind of action, and each met with a different kind of success. In the end, the problem of violence against women demands that we call on all of these approaches––and many more––if we are to make headway against this ancient, global blight.
N.Y.U. Review of Law and Social Change 